


The View from the Cheap Seats

by Missmacymoo



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Baseball, Friends to Lovers, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Probably more stuff that I'll just tag later, Underage Drinking, mentions of child abuse, possible trigger warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:23:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6590968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missmacymoo/pseuds/Missmacymoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Well, here’s something I never thought I’d see again,” Louis could almost feel the smirk before he even turned to face where the voice had come from. Didn’t matter anyways, he knew who was behind him. The same person, who had been practically following Louis around since he took his first steps. The same voice, that told him he loved him before Louis disappeared off the face of the earth. God, he longed to hear this voice every single day, but now that he did he wished he hadn’t. Avoiding the inevitable any longer, the twenty three year old glanced behind him to face his past and damn did he look good. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>To Louis Tomlinson it has always been baseball, baseball, and baseball, but when tragedy hits close to home Louis is forced to return to his small town for the first time in five years bringing up all the ghosts he thought he left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The View from the Cheap Seats

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I'd just like to start off by saying this is the first story I've ever written on here and would appreciate any feedback you have to other. It hasn't been beta'd at all either, unless you count my friend reading it and telling me how much she hates me for not giving away the story line. Please enjoy!
> 
> Oh, also the title if from the song Cheap Seats by Alabama. An oldie but a goodie. :)
> 
> Also, there is so slight trigger warning for child abuse in this first chapter, so if you have an issue with that just skip over the scene with Louis and his father. It's not really descriptive, but it is there, so I'm warning you now!

**May 2010**

The rocks pelting his window should have been Louis’s first clue that he wasn’t dreaming anymore. The thing was his dream was just too good and he didn’t want to end. When a particularly large thunk came from his window, Louis knew he had no choice, but to get up and investigate.

“Harry, what the hell?” Louis half whispered, half yelled out the window at his best friend, who was currently searching the lawn for more rocks or other objects to throw. “You’re going to wake my whole family at this rate.”

“I’m sorry! But you wouldn’t answer your phone and this is important!” Harry responded in a huff.

“Well go on, what is it?” 

“Louis!” Harry moaned throwing his hands up in the air. “I'm not yelling it to the whole neighborhood. Get down here!”

“There isn’t another neighbor for at least a mile!” The older boy laughed, but then he shut his window and began the search for some shoes. He slowly slipped out his bedroom door, careful to tiptoe and not wake his parents as he made his way outside. The Kansas breeze hit him instantly. It had cooled down a lot in the few hours that Louis had been asleep. He wished he had grabbed a jacket on the way out the door.

“Okay, I’m here. What’s so important?” Louis asked eyeing the boy in front of him. Harry just smiled as if he was trying to gain his bearings. He wasn’t wearing any shoes, and his hair was all frazzled as if he had been trying to fall asleep, but it just wasn’t coming to him.

“Louis, you graduate tomorrow,” Harry started slowly fumbling through his words. “And you leave for Florida in a week and I…”

“You?” Louis prompts stepping closer to the younger boy. Harry is trembling as he tries to work up the nerves. His hands aimlessly fussing with his car keys as he makes a point to avoid looking the other in the eye. They both know what is being implied. They’ve been in this situation multiple times before, just brushing it off as getting way too into the moment. 

“Louis, don’t make me say it,” Harry begs finally forcing his eyes up to stare straight into Louis’s own blue ones. “We’ve been fumbling around this for weeks and I just have to know where we stand.”

“Stand how?” Louis questions moving himself even closer. They were almost touching at this point. “You’re my best friend, H.”

“Are we just best friends, Lou? Because lately it hasn’t felt like that anymore. I haven’t felt like that anymore.”

“What do you mean? Harry, if I’ve done something to upset you, you know we can figure it out. We always have.” 

Harry lets his eyes drift to the other’s lips and back up again as if he can’t decide what to do. He lays a shaky hand on Louis’s cheek caressing it as he worked up some courage. This should be the moment they both pull away. Forget their urges and go back to being best friends. Louis was leaving for Florida soon. He’ll be traveling the states and playing baseball all year round hoping he’ll be called up into the majors. They’ve talked about this, it’s Louis’s out. His one way ticket out of the small town life, promising Harry a spot on his dorm floor whenever he saved up enough money to visit. This moment was changing things.

“Screw it,” he mutters wrapping his other arm around Louis’s waist and connecting their lips in a bruising kiss. It should have surprised the older boy, but it really didn’t. Instead of pushing away, it was easier to just lean right into it. He slipped his own arms right up around Harry’s neck trying to hold him closer.

Harry had been right, they had been skirting around this for weeks, years even. Neither of them wanting to admit that something wasn’t right between them. Why they looked at each other like the other hung the stars. They had always been one unit, and they had always known they were different than everybody else. Harry had never wanted a girlfriend, he hung around girls all the time, but he never dated one. He earned himself the title of a ladies man though he never had gone farther than a kiss. Louis on the other hand, kept stringing the same girl along since 8th grade and still couldn’t fully commit to her. This moment had been a long time coming and boy, did it feel better than imagined.

The kiss was short lived, both pulling apart in shock. Harry left his arm around Louis’s hip afraid if he left go, then the moment would be lost forever. Neither knew where to go from here. It was like time had stopped and the boys were just stuck staring at each other. A cow mooed in the distance, shaking the boys out of their trance and pushing them further apart. Harry let his hand fall to his side as he ran the other through his hair.

“Harry, I’m supposed to leave in a week,” Louis stated blankly. He had no idea how he was going to now. Florida was over a thousand miles away, his dream since preschool, and now he didn’t even want to go knowing he wouldn’t be able to see Harry. Skype calls and text messages just didn’t sound as great as the real thing.

“I know. I’m sorry, Lou, but,” Harry stuttered trying to gain his composure. His mind was racing a lot faster than he was able to speak. “I couldn’t just leave it. I had to know where we stood. Had to know if you loved me too.”

“Of course I love you, you idiot,” Louis smiled shaking his head. “I can’t believe you’d even questioned that.”

“So we are alright then? Because I’d really like to kiss you again,” the younger boy was eager, but a hand placed gently on his chest held him back.

“Tomorrow. After graduation, alright?” Both were searching each other’s eyes trying to come to an understanding. “We can figure everything out then.”

“Promise you aren’t going to go back inside and over think this,” Harry begged setting his own hand over the other’s on his chest. “I know you, and if you stress about it, you’ll freak out. It’s me. Remember that.”

“I know, H. I promise not to stress out.”

“Good,” The sigh of relief Harry let out seem to calm both the boys. “Now let me kiss you one more time before I head home.”

It was a quick peck and Harry was back in his truck puttering down the driveway. Louis watched him until his taillights disappeared over the horizon as the vehicle made its way back into town. He had been so caught up in the moment he hadn’t heard the screen door slam behind him. When he turned to walk back into the house he was met with a looming figure leaning up against the porch column.

“Thought you were asleep,” the voice boomed. It was Mark, Louis’s father, he could tell that voice anywhere. It was normally the voice yelling at him during his baseball games. It had always been just a little bit louder than everybody else’s or maybe that was just in his head. 

“Could say the same about you.”

“I think I still might be, if I saw right there was any indication,” Louis froze. He couldn’t have seen it, he wasn’t going to ruin this moment. His father’s hard face said otherwise. This wasn’t going to end very well, his father had a vision for him and kissing boys was not part of it. 

Louis swallowed hard as his father pushed himself off the column and made his way down the porch stairs to his son.

“I think we need to take a walk to the barn.”

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You are throwing your life away.”

_Whack._

“No baseball team is going to want you now.”

_Whack._

_“I did not raise my son to be a faggot.”_

Whack.

The batting cage had always been Louis’s sanctuary. There was nothing else as good at clearing his mind as hitting around a few balls, but even now he couldn’t keep his mind from racing. He was leaving for summer training tomorrow and he still hadn’t talked to Harry. His dad hadn’t even spoken a word to him since that night either except when he handed him the frozen peas and told him that he’d have a matching black eyes if he didn’t end things with that Styles kid immediately.

Graduation had been a nightmare. They had left the barn around four a.m. after a very heated argument. Mark wasn’t going to let his son go down this road, there was way too much at stake. 

“Think of what your mother is going to say. She’ll be heartbroken if she finds out,” he had reminded his son when they had finally reached the barn. “Think of what this town would think.”

“It’s my life, Dad. I’m leaving in a week. Nobody is going to care about what I do.”

That had been the moment the older man had pulled one of Louis’s bats off the wall, twisting it in his hands as he stepped toward his only son. 

“You are going to listen and you are going to listen good,” he had started making Louis shiver from anticipation as he backed away from his approaching father. “You will end this now or your bat won’t just be used for hitting balls, you understand?”

The fear alone had been enough to shut Louis up for a few minutes as his father went on a tirade. The poor child hadn’t even got a chance to explore his sexuality before he was shut down forced to hide away his true feelings for his best friend. He wasn’t even sure what the kiss had meant barely had time to take a breath before he had been hauled out here.

“I knew there was something going on between you two. You have always been so close, hanging off of each other constantly,” his father sneered circling his son as if waiting for him to crack.

“We’re best friends, Dad. Have been since we were in diapers.”

“What I saw out there was not how best friends treat each other, unless things have seriously changed since I was in high school,” Louis could almost feel the older man’s spit on his cheek as he spoke. The teenager had been so happy just an hour ago. He just didn’t understand how things had gone downhill so quickly. His blood was starting to boil as he watched his old man pace in front of him, swinging the bat as if to taunt him, daring Louis to challenge him. “I knew I should have stopped your friendship a long time ago. Those Styles and their free spirits, preaching about how everybody should love everybody. We’ll if that was so true, the mother wouldn’t be in the middle of divorce now would she? Poor kid was bound to be a fairy. ”

“Because you have any idea what true love is. I know what you do on your business trips to Abilene,” this conversation was getting out of hand, as both were now getting heated. Louis kept his eye on the bat following its movement. He didn’t know how much more his father would let him talk before he started swinging. “It’s definitely not to buy cows, unless you are referring to a different kind of heifer.” 

“You don’t know anything about what I do while on the road, you think you’re so high and mighty now that you are about to be a college boy? You don’t know nothing about the real world.”

“I know one thing,” Louis sighed already residing to his fate as he worked up the courage to look into his father’s eyes. “I love Harry Styles and damn if there isn’t anything you can do about that.”

The bat came swinging at Louis’s face with full force, not even enough time for him to flinch or shield himself. The eighteen year old went crashing to the barn floor trying to crawl away from his father.

“You continue with this, boy, and you can kiss Florida goodbye.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

His mom had thrown a fit about his eye. It had swelled up till almost half of his face was black and blue. Louis had lied to her, saying he snuck out for a senior party the night before that went haywire when alcohol got involved. She was furious demanding to know the name of the kid who had hurt him. If only she knew it was her own husband.

He did do a pretty good job avoiding Harry after that surprisingly. Kept his head low during the ceremony and turned his phone off in hopes that the message would be loud in clear. Apparently it wasn’t enough because the familiar brown curls were currently being pressed up against the side of the batting cage. Harry’s green eyes focused on Louis with a glare as the last ball was shot out the machine.

“You promised you wouldn’t freak out about this.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Louis sighed dropping his bat to his side and wiping his brow. He was avoiding looking at his best friend. He couldn’t do this, he had been so close. This conversation was just going to make everything worse. The had to end it and move on. His family didn’t need the scandal, plus Harry was so young. There was no way he actually knew what he wanted.

“Then why have you been avoiding me?”

“Because we can’t do this, Harry” Louis pleaded finally looking his best friend in the eye and making his way over propping the bat up against the wall. “You know we can’t. There is way too much at stake.”

“So you are freaking out,” the younger boy sighed entering the cage to help pick up the balls. “I knew it. Louis, we need to talk about this.”

“H, I leave tomorrow. It’s done with alright, just drop it.” The words came out harsher than he planned, but the effect was just the same. Harry dropped the baseball he was currently holding and stared at his best friend in shock. 

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m moving fifteen hundred miles away tomorrow even if we did try we wouldn’t last. We’d never see each other. I’ll be on the road constantly and you can’t afford a trip to Florida. Think about what the town would say. What our parents would say, ” his voice was desperate, begging for the other to just accept it, but Harry had never been one to back down from a challenge. It’s the reason Louis had found himself in so many fights growing up or at least he liked to think it was the reason. 

“Since when did you care what other people think? I thought all mighty Tommo was above all other, doesn’t let anybody get to him,” The words were being spat out at vengeance, begging Louis to fight back. He knew the way town saw him, the golden boy, destined for greatness. People talked constantly about how he’d be famous one day. Bring a name to this little nowhere town. “You’re just bitter that people might think differently of you now. Wouldn’t be Mr. Perfect anymore, huh?”

“I’ve never been Mr. Perfect, and you know that,” Louis sighed sliding down against the side of the cage until he was fully sitting on the ground. “You’ve got to stop looking to me that way. You’re not in love with me. You’re in love with a fantasy version of me.”

“Lou,” It almost came out as a whisper as Harry bent down in front of him. He brought his hand up to brush the fading bruise on Louis’s cheek. He hadn’t even mentioned the bruise, probably already knew by the way his best friend had been acting. It was all the town was talking about on graduation after he revealed it by walking across the stage. “Any version of you is perfect to me. I love you.”

“Then you know I can’t do this. In a few years times you’ll forget all about me. Probably be married to some beautiful girl with your 2.5 children and forget you ever had a stupid little crush on me. I’m not worth it.” 

“I could never forget you, Lou. You’re my best friend, please don’t make me. You’ve always been worth it,” the tears were already forming, clouding up Harry’s green eyes as they stared at each other only inches apart. Neither of them knowing what they should do, so Louis did the only thing he could think of. Slipping his hands behind Harry’s neck he pulled him in for one last kiss. The younger boy threw his hands up gripping the chain link fence behind him as if to steady himself as Louis’s hands moved from his neck around to hold his head in place. After a few seconds went by, the separated staring once more as they caught their breath before the older boy blinked, looking way.

“Go home, Harry. It’s over.”

The shock on Harry’s face wasn’t even the most surprising part as the younger boy jumped up to pace around the batting area. All hope had faded, Louis had severed the tie. 

“So that’s it then? We’re through? Sixteen years of friendship down the drain because you’re too scared to admit how you feel? Don’t want the world to know that Louis Tomlinson might be different?” His eyes were crazed with rage. Harry was a force to be reckoned with when he found an injustice. The kiss had been a bad idea, Louis already regretted intiationing it. “That is the most bullshit thing to ever come out of your mouth and you talk a lot of shit.”

“Harry, I..”

“No! Don’t Harry me. You want to be over, that’s fine by me,” he seethed turning his back to Louis to breathe. When he turned back around the curly haired boy was much calmer, but his eyes were still dark. “I hope Florida treats you well. And when you find yourself all alone pushed so far back in your closet you can’t even see the light. Remember you brought this on yourself.” 

“Fuck you.”

“Nah man, fuck you.”

With that Harry was off, out of the batting cage and out of Louis’s life. He rushed off so fast, it could only be guessed that the tears had been in full force by now. His own weren’t far behind as he chucked his helmet against the cage. His own heart was breaking. Damn his stupid father and damn Harry Styles.


End file.
